How to Enable and Configure vCenter SNMP Step by Step

What is SNMP in VMware

Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) developed in 1988 is a network protocol that is native to IP networks and compatible with most network devices. SNMP monitoring provides a standardized way for network engineers and admins to gather information about networking equipment, and helps ensure that a company’s network is running smoothly. Many network monitoring tools rely on SNMP to gain visibility into network infrastructure, such as routers, switches, and firewalls.

In this article, we’ll discuss how to enable SNMP on the vCenter Server appliance and the detailed steps to configure vCenter SNMP to monitor your networking equipment.

How to enable and configure SNMP on the vCenter

If you want to monitor the state of your vCenter 6.5/6.7/7.0 servers in your monitoring system, you must enable SNMP agent on your hosts by performing the following steps.

Tips: You need to enable SSH access to your ESXi host.

Enable vCenter SNMP on ESXi

You can only make sure to start, stop, and restart the SNMP service. Go to your ESXi host >> Configure >> Services >> SNMP Server. The service is stopped by default, then Start it.

Configure vCenter SNMP from command line

Here are the commands I have used for the vCenter SNMP configuration. Make sure you are able to login as the root user.

1. Run the command in the console to view the current configuration for SNMP status:

2. Configure the Simple Network Management Protocol communities on the vCenter Server appliance 6.7. To Set the community for VCSA, execute the below command

3. Set the SNMP target. The SNMP target is a server on which monitoring software is installed to handle SNMP traps and collect monitoring information.

4. There are four levels of logging to choose from:  debug|info|warning|error  (“debug” has the highest level of verbosity, and “error” has the lowest). I will be configuring my logging level as “warning”.

5. Enable the SNMP agent:

6. Check the SNMP status using the below command:

7. Once all the SNMP configuration is completed, you can send the test trap using the below command.

After configuring SNMP on vCenter Server appliance 6.7, it’s convenient to monitor the VMware vSphere environments, which allows you to react in time if any issues. Meanwhile, to create a more secure VMware virtual environment, don’t forget to perform VMware VM backup to data loss and to be able to recover data and restore workloads if a disaster strikes.

Hassle-free VM backup solution with AOMEI Cyber Backup

As you may know, it is necessary to backup vCenter to avoid data loss before you update or upgrade vCenter Server appliance. It is also crucial to backup the virtual machines.

In order to safeguard VM data, this part will introduce how to back up VMware ESXi virtual machine with the reliable VMware backup software - AOMEI Cyber Backup. The professional centralized backup software supports various versions including ESXi 6.0 and later versions, and it offers automated backup task and secure disaster recovery. You are able to backup your multiple virtual machines with its flexible strategies.

✦ Secure VM Backup: schedule VMware or Hyper-V virtual machine backups and perform hot backup to protect crucial data continuously without human errors.
✦ Agentless vSphere Backup: batch backup large numbers of VMs managed by vCenter Server, or multiple VMs on a standalone ESXi host.
✦ Multiple Storage Destinations: backup to a local drive, or network destinations like NAS.
✦ Automated Execution: create backup schedules to automate backups daily, weekly, or monthly.
✦ Role-Assignment: allow one administrator to create sub-accounts with limited privilege, effectively reduce administration cost and manual errors.

Please hit the button below to download AOMEI Cyber Backup 30-day free trial, and enjoy more benefits from this VM backup software:

Secure backup solution for VMware virtual machines

1. Bind Devices: Access to AOMEI Cyber Backup web client, navigate to Source Device > VMware > + Add VMware Device to Add vCenter or Standalone ESXi host. And then click … > Bind Device.

2. Create Backup Task: Navigate to Backup Task >> Create New Task, and select VMware ESXi Backup as the Backup Type to schedule VM image backup and restore in VMware vSphere.

3. In the opened wizard, do as following to backup VM at image level.

• Enter a Task Name, you can change the task name or use the default name with an ordinal.
• On Device Name section, batch select large numbers of VMs managed by vCenter Server for centralized backup.

• On Target section, specify a location to store VMs. For example, you can easily backup VM to network or local directory. According to 3-2-1 backup rule, you should save VM backups to two different storage devices or locations.
• (optional) On Schedule section, choose full/incremental/differential backup to keep tracking virtual machine data and select the time and frequency (daily/weekly/monthly), which protects business security all the time.

• (optional) On Backup Cleanup section, configure retention policy to auto delete the old backup files and save storage space.

4. Click Start Backup. It allows you to select start backup now or later.

Created backup tasks will be listed and monitored separately, for restoring, progress checking and schedule changing.

Secure VM recovery from the VMware image-based backup

When a backup is complete, you can restore VM from image backups by clicking the Restore button.

✦ Select a VM backup and click Restore to original / New location.

✦ For example, click Restore to new location which easily make a clone of a virtual machine in the same or another datastore/host, without reinstalling or configuring a new VM.

Summary

SNMP provides a flexible framework and enables network engineers to monitor the health and performance of devices. This article explained how to enable SNMP on ESXi hosts and how to configure vCenter SNMP to monitor VMware vSphere environments.